Bilawal attacks Pak PM Sharif for lack of strong stance on Kashmir

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for not adopting a strong stance over the Kashmir issue with India, saying his party will not reconcile with those "who dare not speak up" on the matter.

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for not adopting a strong stance over the Kashmir issue with India, saying his party will not reconcile with those "who dare not speak up" on the matter.

He also criticised the Sharif-led PML-N government for "turning a blind eye towards the Indian aggression on the Line of Control." "The Pakistani citizens are being killed at the LoC and the Sharif brothers (Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif) are busy breaking the backbone of our economy," he said.

The 26-year-old Bhutto scion, addressing the party workers' convention in Lahore on Saturday, said the government "should adopt a strong stance over Kashmir and become the voice of oppressed Kashmiris." "There will be no reconciliation with those who dare not speak up on the Kashmir issue," Bilawal said.

Earlier during a rally last year, Bilawal had said the PPP if voted to power will take back every inch of Kashmir from India. "I will take back Kashmir, all of it, and I will not leave behind a single inch of it because, like the other provinces, it belongs to Pakistan," he had said.

His statement had drawn severe criticism in India.

He went on to call the Sharifs "friends of terrorists" and alleged that their "style of governance is all about obliging their relatives and friends". "Lahore is the heart of Pakistan. This city has been handed over to the followers of dictatorship and friends of terrorists. Punjab being run by such people (Sharifs) is nothing but a punishment for its dwellers," Bilawal said.

He criticised the two brothers over their failure to overcome the energy crisis, ending corruption and making the lives of farmers miserable. Bilawal also asked the judiciary to take up the matter of "judicial murder" of his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and assassination of his mother Benazir Bhutto.

"Why a reference filed by his father Asif Ali Zardari to reopen the judicial murder of his grandfather has not yet been taken up by the judiciary," he asked. Bilawal is son of former two-time premier Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated in 2007. Bilawal's father Asif Ali Zardari was president from 2008 to 2013.